PICDAR ENABLES BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT AT BBC WORLDWIDE
10 year old archive of more than 140,000 records now managed by Media Mogul digital asset management (DAM) system
New business opportunities…
Over 140,000 records – mostly images and PDF documents – have been moved from CD archives into Picdar’s Media Mogul® digital asset management system, and as a result, BBC Magazines is rediscovering everything it has. Not only is it proactively repurposing some of its images in-house, but the system is also presenting opportunities for growth, new ideas and potential for syndication with international partners. It even supports the advertising teams with magazine cover files ready to ‘drop’ into PowerPoint presentations and a powerful search facility to find editorial references to key brands.
BBC Worldwide is the commercial arm of the British Broadcasting Corporation, specialising in books, videos, CDs, exhibitions and programme sales, as well as its 31 magazines and occasional ad-hoc ‘specials’. It’s a large operation that boasts titles such as Radio Times, Top Gear, Good Homes, Gardeners’ World, Teletubbies, Spot and Noddy.
A cumbersome manual approach…
BBC Magazines has approximately 900 Macs and PCs. Prior to its relationship with Picdar, the company stored all of its archive material, images and document files on CD. With more than 2,200 files containing 100,000 images and 40,000 PDF documents, finding and managing specific information or pictures was fast becoming a cumbersome drain on valuable people resources. The use of images was marked manually, using post-it notes on pages of each magazine, for copyright and billing purposes before being sent to accounts for payment.
…became a slick, streamlined workflow
Even before detailed assessments were made, the business case for such a system seemed obvious. Mark Ginns from Publishing Systems at BBC Worldwide explains: “Rather than allow valuable assets such as images and information contained within articles to remain static and forgotten on CDs, we wanted to bring them back to life, re-use them and get more value from them. Using a digital asset management (DAM) system, we could envisage additional revenue streams and integrate image use with our accounts system. For example, we’ve published dozens of great recipes in our food and home magazines over the years, and once we could easily locate them through a system search, we could consider publishing a cookery book based on the same information,” he added.
Implementation of the system…
One of Ginns' first challenges was recognising different internal work practices. “The technical solution comprises 15 per cent of the overall task, it’s standardising workflow where all the heartache happens.”
“We evaluated other systems, but felt that Picdar’s Media Mogul was a far more complete product. Picdar is based in the UK, it was important for us to know who was doing the work – and that they weren’t thousands of miles away.
Ginns took up a reference from Mirror Group Newspapers, who gave a very frank account of what he could expect, which according to Ginns has borne completely true. “They will deliver on their promises. And, this has indeed been the case.”
…was “an excellent delivery
To prove that it could unlock the process, Picdar went away and populated the new BBC database with assets from three magazine titles. Ginns continues: “When the Sun box arrived back, we literally plugged it in and up popped the content. It was an excellent delivery, and that’s been the story ever since. Working with Picdar has been excellent.”
Access all areas
BBC Magazines has now installed Media Mogul across its entire operation, with both PC and MAC users able to enter the system via an intranet browser. The system is able to take on a high-resolution image, develop a low-resolution positional and swap the high resolution image back in for final use. “There are whole departments and user groups now able to view our content for the first time,” says Ginns. “We’ve set access rights with a highly visible, ‘traffic light’ system that indicates ‘yes, no or maybe’ using colour.
“The advertising team can now access magazine covers to ‘drop’ into PowerPoint presentations at the click of a mouse, rather than having to hassle someone else internally for them. Media Mogul is really adding value to their work.”
Growth and opportunity
The BBC Worldwide team is also developing a pilot with Picdar to support syndication to international partners.
“DAM could be the delivery mechanism used to fulfil most of our syndication work, which would make it cheaper to do. Using the system as a shop window, we would only have to fulfil an order for images or editorial once now, rather than five or six times for each country.”
